Artist: Paul Simon
Album: In the Blue Light
Label: Legacy Recordings
Release Date: 9.7.2018
Paul Simon has been writing and recording for over 60 years, and his new album shows he hasn’t changed a bit—proof enough to this writer that there must be a God. Simon’s a true innovator and hasn’t quit that calling, even when he’s delivering a do-over.
Simon released his first songs over 60 years ago as a solo artist or with the duo “Tom & Jerry” (later known as “Simon & Garfunkel”), but his first truly successful songs exploded over 50 years ago with a distinctive sound and an intelligence that rarely survives the “business” side of the music business. Having outlasted and outperformed most others on both the “music” and “business” sides of the music biz, Simon claims to be done with performing and has embarked on his Farewell Tour; he has also released an album of essentially remakes of lesser-known previous works. Simon has selected songs originally appearing on albums released over a nearly 40-year span, from 1973 with There Goes Rhymin’ Simon, and Still Crazy After All These Years, One-Trick Pony, Hearts and Bones, The Rhythm of The Saints, You’re The One all the way to 2011’s So Beautiful Or So What.
“One Man’s Ceiling Is Another Man’s Floor,” they say, and it’s the opening track on the album. Proving the point, these re-imaginings of Simon’s less familiar songs definitely compare to most other artists’ ceilings. To offset the bluesy “Ceiling’s” heavy rhythms, Simon has called on Joel Wenhardt’s light touch on the piano and wife Edie Brickell’s light touch on finger snaps. Segue to “Love,” a bittersweet, deceptively simple offering where guitarist Bill Frisell, who jazzed it up for years before turning to country and Americana, plays a dreamy electric melody behind the vocals, and Steve Gadd gently caresses his drums while Simon sings “We’re only here for a season of sunlight.”
True to its title, In the Blue Light contains a disproportionate amount of melancholy and end-of-life musings which may register with older listeners more than youngsters—if you’re looking to run into Julio, down by the schoolyard, curb those expectations. The closing song, “Questions for the Angels,” about a homeless pilgrim crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, forms a Bookend, of sorts, to the 59th Street Bridge, ’way, ’way Uptown, and ’way, ‘way happier.
Wynton Marsalis added trumpet and arranging, yMusic, a chamber sextet (which plays with such diverse talents as Bon Iver, Ben Folds and Chris Thile) backs on three tracks, and jazz drummer Jack DeJohnette weighs in—but make no mistake, whether his music is welcomed at Carnegie Hall or the Village Vanguard, at Graceland or Preservation Hall, or he travels from Queens to the Caribbean, then across the world to Africa, In the Blue Light is unmistakably 100% Paul Simon, thank God.
—Suzanne Cadgène
” Was a sunny day, not a cloud was in the sky, not a negative word was heard , from the people passing by”__P.S.